That is what Jared Polis claims per this story from Denver's surviving daily newspaper:
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who made his fortune selling greeting cards and flowers online, gave a shout out to the blogosphere Saturday, giving it — and himself — credit for the "demise" of traditional journalism.
"We killed the Rocky Mountain News. Long live new media," said Polis at the Netroots Nation speaker series in Westminster, according to the Denver Young Democrats Examiner website.
Jared Polis shows his typical hubris in making a nonsensical claim. Bloggers and new media did not kill the Rocky, its outdated revenue model based upon advertisement collapsed due to internet companies. Scripps (the Rocky's owner) decided to divest itself of the Rocky. In addition, the Joint Operating Agreement gave the Denver Post a right of first refusal in any sale. The following exchange via Twitter from the Rocky site details why the Rocky could not change into a "new media," web-only publication.
Question: Why not start an online-only edition. Contreras: If we thought we could do that, we would not be here today.
Contreras says for Rocky to continue as online-only product , the partner in the JOA - Dean Singleton's Denver Post - would have to agree.
In other words, the Denver Post was much more culpable in the Rocky's demise than Jared Polis and his ego.
For those readers who are not Jared Polis, the Columbia Journalism Review has a tribute site where the former Rocky Mountain News staffers posted their remembrances of the late, great Rocky.
by Civil Sense
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